Friends groups are springing
up across the country in recognition of the classic adage about "friends in
need." In the auspicious times of twenty or even ten years ago, libraries
could go merrily on their way fulfilling their missions. As Euripedes could
say of his Orestes, "When fortune smiles, who needs friends?" Happily, it
seems likely to be our fate to avoid the disasters of the House of Agamemnon ;
but oh, how times have changed! In our days of rampant inflation, tax
revolts, pressures for more outreach, more computers, better collections, and
better services, we prefer to recall another ancient adage about needing all
the friends we can get. We are therefore fortunate that we were building
up great amounts of residual good will during those happy days of sputniks
and Camelots. The value of ancient and long-standing friends is amply documented
by adages which scarcely need to be repeated here (readers presumably
do not wish to be told once again about King James's old shoes or
At that time, I promised to include an anthology of quotations relating to friends
which had not, to my knowledge, been expressed during the course of the institute.
These can be verified in several standard books of quotations.
Benjamin Franklin's old dog) . More to the point: in our days of need, what
should we be doing to call on our friends indeed?

Issue Date:

1980

Publisher:

Graduate School of Library Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign